Freedom of speech

Pussy Riot and New York graffiti art

BEHOLD the most punk rock photo ever taken. Pussy Riot, the Russian girl guitar trio who have been jailed since March for going into the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow and performing a karate-kicking mock prayer entitled "Our Lady, chase out Putin", are playing out an iconic punk strategy on a scale that has probably never been achieved before. Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten had their tussles with the law, but they never actually found themselves facing the full repressive machinery of an authoritarian state, much as they wanted to believe they did. The trick they pulled with "God Save the Queen", or that Jello Biafra pulled with "Kalifornia Über Alles", and so on through 30 years of similar dog-collared Situationist antics, was the same basic play: a provocation designed to goad institutions of authority into a harsh response, and thus to drag them down to the ludic idiocy of the mosh pit, for fun, profit, and to some extent political re-imagination of the social order.

But the word "provocation" has a much lighter, more playful feel than provokatsia. In English, it's hard to imagine who would seriously condemn others for staging a "provocation"; such a person would have to be wearing a handlebar mustache and carrying a pocket-watch, and threatening to call in the Pinkertons. In Russian, however, provokatsia still has much of the scary edge it had in the Soviet years. To call a demonstration a provokatsia is to imply it has been instigated by shadowy, usually foreign, powers, with the aim of discrediting the government, the church, the Russian people, and all that is holy and good. The charge Pussy Riot faces, that of "hooliganism", has a similarly Soviet sound, and carries a heavy penalty: up to seven years in prison. These penalties proceed from a social imagination that views the act of denouncing the authorities as a crime, an attempt to destroy the social order, and that sees government, the church or "the nation" as having a collective right to defend themselves by imprisoning the offending individuals.

Of course, you have to bear in mind that in most countries, people can't just go into a cathedral unannounced and perform a rock song while jumping around on the altar. That might well land you in court in New York City, too. You wouldn't spend five months in pre-trial detention, and you wouldn't face seven years in prison. But your free-speech rights don't extend to aggressive, possibly offensive political demonstrations on someone else's property without their consent.

The NYPD dispatched cops with paintbrushes to cover up a controversial mural on the side of an Inwood business Tuesday, after approaching the owner with concerns about its message, DNAinfo.com New York has learned.

A pair of plainclothes officers arrived at New Edition Cleaners at 4929 Broadway at 11 a.m. Tuesday, armed with buckets of black paint, rollerbrushes and drop cloths, and began painting over local graffiti artist Alan Ket's five-day-old mural titled “Murderers.” The two identified themselves as police to a reporter.

The mural, which included the word "murderers" painted above several tombstones and coffins with epitaph names that included the NYPD, the Environmental Protection Agency and global corporations including Halliburton and Monsanto, was painted on the wall of the business with the permission of its owners.

...“I was inspired by the unarmed Ramarley Graham shooting in Bronx and the trend in police shootings,” said Ket, who painted the mural with two guest artists.

I find this situation interesting, not because it suggests that the police in America are goons, and certainly not because it would legitimise an old-fashioned Soviet-style claim on the part of the Putin regime that "everybody does it". I find it interesting because I find the police's position here understandable and sympathetic. What they were doing—painting over a political message displayed on someone's own property—seems to violate both free-expression and property rights. But you can see where they might well have a case.

The police, after all, have to work on these streets every day, suppressing violence, confronting people whose behaviour may be criminal, and enforcing public order. The interaction between police and possibly belligerent citizens depends crucially on perceptions of legitimacy and authority. To allow the public display of messages contending that the police deserve no legitimacy, and are in fact murderers, makes that line of argument available to any citizen whom the police need to confront or negotiate with. It probably doesn't rise to the level of incitement, but it's close. I can absolutely understand why, if I had to work that job, I would feel it necessary to ensure the mural came down—I would feel that the mural was a threat to my ability to do my job, and even to my personal safety.

If the police want to make a claim like that, though, they need to submit it to proper scrutiny. They need to get an order from a judge, one which could be challenged by the owners and/or the artist. The problem with the police behaviour here is not that it violates an uninfringeable American right to freedom of expression; there are always other concerns to weigh in balance with expressive rights. The problem is that the police ignored due process.

Similarly, the problem with the behaviour of the Russian government towards Pussy Riot is not that they charged them with a disturbance of public order. The problem is that they've held them in jail without bail for five months, refusing to let them see their young children, and that they're threatening them with an absurdly vicious penalty for an offense that probably merits no worse than a fine of a few thousand dollars. It's the lack of proportion in the punishment that constitutes a denial of the right to free expression, and an intimidation to others.

But this, again, is interesting. Because it suggests that the territory on which we enjoy our rights is not so simple to delineate. The key isn't the general principle; it's the specific implementation, the culture. What separates a free country from a repressive one is the way government and citizens react, automatically, in all those constantly recurring situations where a "right" has to be translated into a response to a messy situation. What protects us is not so much the reference in a constitution to a right to free speech. It's the more prosaic and harder to define guarantees like those of due process and proportionality in punishment, and the habit of governments and citizens of insisting that these actually be implemented. Still, it's probably better to phrase the battle as one for freedom of expression. Due process and proportionality are just not very punk rock.

The US has a lot of police officers, so the plural of anecdote shouldn't be data in this case, but I read a lot more stories about cops using their uniform and bluster as a substitute for due process than I do stories about cops facing consequences for same.

If the police want to bolster their legitimacy with the public, maybe they need to be a little more careful with the way they deploy their authority, with some self-enforcement occurring in the public view.

"I find it interesting because I find the police's position here understandable and sympathetic. What they were doing—painting over a political message displayed on someone's own property—seems to violate both free-expression and property rights. But you can see where they might well have a case."

I can see no such thing.

The NYPD appears to have performed an illegal act and their image will improve when they are seen to UPHOLD the law, not violate it.

The due process issue is bad, but you are misinformed if you think the substantive action of censoring murals because they contain anti-authority messages is anything other than flagrantly unconstitutional.

Citizens hardly need a mural to question the legitamacy of the police. The mural may have been bad taste, but it certainly wasn't incitement. Painting over art because it questions the police's legitamacy only makes it more clear that their legitamacy is tenuous. Legitamate police power can withstand a mural questioning a specific police action. But a panicked response that violates the rights of artists and property owners to criticise their public servents suggests otherwise.

The point about the police in New York strikes me as odd. That the complaint by the boys in blue is legitimate or could be enforced. We have personalities on Television of public stature everyday undermining the legitimacy of elected officials, government institutions, non-profit organisations and all other pillars of society. Yet we don't see police forces or the institutions blatantly and publicly blacking them out.

I understand that the police respectability is a key tool in them doing their jobs. But I think the way they handled that mural is not going to restore it.

The fact that the reputation of the police is in jeopardy is in large part of their own doing. There are too many stories of police abuse, and too many cover ups. They are becoming very liberal in their use of non-lethal weapons (and sometimes lethal too.) They do not show proper respect to due process (like in this instance.)

Of course it is going to hurt their ability to do their job. But their are not going to solve that problem by censoring a mural. They should clean up their act most of all.

The problem with the police behaviour here is not that it violates an uninfringeable American right to freedom of expression; there are always other concerns to weigh in balance with expressive rights. The problem is that the police ignored due process.

No, you are absolutely wrong. The police just may not do this under any circumstances whatsoever. The problem is not the didn't file out some paperwork. Due process is about forcing the police to go to a judge, so the judge can tell the police to *^&$ off. Due process means the state loses from time to time. And by the way, yes we do have inalienable rights, due process is one of them.

Now, of course this mural is offensive and childish and wrong, but they still have an absolute right to put it up. "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." There is absolutely no concern for proportionality here, rights are inviolable. And by the way, the absolute worst response to the police being called goons is for the police to act like goons.

Still, it's probably better to phrase the battle as one for freedom of expression. Due process and proportionality are just not very punk rock.

No, it sounds ridiculous because it is. Its better to phrase it about freedom of expression and property because that's what it's about!

They deserve it. I'm usually liberal and sympathetic to protesting but not here.

NOBODY has a right to storm a church, temple or mosque in the middle of a holy service and hijack the ceremony, which is what they did. I don't care if religion isn't your cup of tea or you hate the fact that religion and government are intertwined (when are they not? Look at Israel and the entire Arab world). You do not have the right to desecrate and disrespect peoples' places of worship, period.

Is it okay to disrupt a Torah reading in a Jewish temple because you're protesting Benjamin Netanyahu and the fact that the Israeli government is intertwined with Judaism? No, it's not okay. Is it okay to invade an Islamic mosque and mock the prayers of others as a form of political protest? Go ahead and try.

The right to freedom of expression should ALWAYS come before government image. Any defense of "understanding" a government silencing its people should give priority first to the need for the freedom of speech. Russia has a long history of silencing protestors, including journalists. I am a bit worried that this blogger had the audacity to entertain that it was "reasonable" for a police department to shove something like that under the carpet. That is a slippery slope argument, bucko.
Lastly, it is not quite clear to me this blogger's opinion. They appear to be giving value to both sides.

Uhh, no. Or, I can understand why they'd want to do it, but I can also understand why the ruling Party would want to silence the opposition, or why a Dictator might want to kill off the opposition (a very effective method of silencing). Understanding doesn't do much for me here, because the cops are still law-breaking dicks.

"The problem is that the police ignored due process."
And which, as it should, brings up the immortal words of Chuck Berry -
"Arrested on charges of unemployment,
He was sittin' in the witness stand,
The judge's wife called up the district attorney,
To say 'free that brown eyed handsome man',
If you want your job you'd better free that brown eyed handsome man."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03OfDbsT68U

I can understand the police being concerned, but I see this as an example of officialdom believing they're justified in avoiding or ending uncertainty-- in this case, the uncertainty of public opinion. About that uncertainty, I have no hesitation in saying categorically that the police must endure it.

I say this, incidentally, as no fan of the message. That kind of mural occurs sometimes here in Philadelphia-- one on West Girard Avenue honoring Malcolm X comes to mind-- and the only thing its extremist message does is drive me away and make me vote against the muralist's desires. But whether it gets to stay up there is a wildly different question from whether the views it expresses are correct. I think that from an official standpoint, even a neo-Nazi mural would get to stay (though someone would likely burn down the building it was on); it would be intensely ironic for government to forbid it, especially in the name of ordnung.

I just don't like government being in the morality business, Right- or Left-leaning.

The problem with the police behaviour here is not that it violates an uninfringeable American right to freedom of expression; there are always other concerns to weigh in balance with expressive rights.
This "weighing" of rights is a muddy game, easily abused by the people like the persecutors of Pussy Riot. I prefer a different game where we treat free expression as uninfringeable, and then argue about what "expression" is and is not.
Just as expression of love for fire is collateral damage in preventing arson, some expression is collateral damage in preventing the incitement to violence. In both cases, that exression should be protected if it not was part of a larger crime. Also public obscenity might not involve a larger offense, but only the manner of expression is regulated not its content.
None of that makes the fuzzy areas go away. But I think it does help protect the clear areas much better than some vague concept of "weighing" the fundamental rights. Pussy Riot, for example, is merely guilty of tresspass, not of extending their freedom of speech beyond some quantitative boundary.The problem is that the police ignored due process.
This is also true. And since it requires less philosophising about fundamental rights, it is the *first* issue to deal with.

First, America cannot look at other nations and make the (claim) that we have (free speech) without some sort of negative consequences, because that is not true. American governments, the police in particular, have become increasingly sensitive to public criticism where it will be-not only published at large, but, will be uploaded on Youtube, twitter, facebook, and more - where the public can SEE - with their own eyes that our cops are lying, our judicial system is a farce, and that our community is in real danger of losing more rights than we ever knew we had in the first place - in the name of (what's the recent cause celeb?) Criminal Justice, Defense, Home Land Security, and before that? McCarthyism, Communism, etc, etc. What we need is the right to speak about our government, and police, without being targeted, arrested, harassed, online, or off, etc. What we need is genuine change in our courts, and the way our police actually work - not, how they claim to work, but how they actually work - because Freedom of speech is not only a fundamental right listed in our constitution - but, the very reason it's listed - is because (free speech) actually helps us to retain the government/country of freedom, rights and such as our founding fathers envisioned. I love America, my people, my country, and everything about it, and it took traveling the world to (see) how much we have, as compared to others, but, its a treasure easily lost under the guise of so many bs reasons to infringe upon it, and shut it down--and remember - once that starts - it's over - our country as we know it - is over--and I sooo don't want to see us lose what we treasure most: America, home of the free, the brave...

If the mural had read "Kill the cops", would the police have been correct to paint it over? Yes. That's incitement.
Would they have been correct to paint it over without first getting a court order? No. That's due process.
In fact, the section of the article I didn't past in explained that the mural read in full: "We know who the real MURDERERS are". I think accusing the police of being, as a group, murderers in a neighbourhood where violence against police is routine gets pretty close to incitement.

1. I don't think it was in the middle of a church service, but that is neither here nor there.

2. The cathedral in question was built by the government with taxpayer money. This complicates the question considerably, in terms of what rights citizens should or shouldn't have in that space. And the "intertwining" of state and church in Russia, as you call it - or more accurately the instrumentalisation of the Orthodox Church as a propaganda tool of the state, much as it was under the Tsars - is exactly what Pussy Riot was protesting. The instrumentalisation of religion as a tool of nationalist propaganda, and the enlistment of the state in theological causes, is equally illiberal and oppressive in Israel and across the Arab world; citing them as examples doesn't exactly strengthen your case here.

3. Is it okay to disrupt a Torah reading in a Jewish temple to protest Netanyahu and theocracy in Israel? Morally, yes. Legally, no, and it shouldn't be: it should be punishable by an appropriate fine. And of course synagogues are perfectly justified in keeping people out if they suspect they're going to protest, synagogues being private associations. This is where the fact that that particular cathedral in Russia was built with taxpayer funds becomes problematic, though.